Ottawa Airport rejects Trudeau electoral reform ad

With the Ottawa International Airport having rejected their billboard advertisement calling out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for breaking his electoral reform promise, the advocacy group Leadnow has decided to run ads in bus shelters and pubs around Parliament Hill.

“We crowdfunded to purchase this billboard and when we submitted the creative, we were told the Ottawa Airport Authority was not going to approve it,” the group’s campaign leader on electoral reform, Katelynn Northam, told iPolitics Monday.

Northam said she was informed through the company that sells the airport’s outdoor advertising, Pattison Outdoor Advertising, that the airport has a policy barring ads that single out politicians and mention them in a negative light.

“This one is a no-go due to the fact that it’s negative, and refers to a particular person/politician,” a Pattison account executive said in an email to Northam, paraphrasing the airport director’s rejection of the ad.

The airport then asked if Leadnow would consider a revision that excluded Trudeau’s name — something along the lines of: “Electoral reform- There’s still time to make it right.”

They declined.

The billboard was supposed to read, “Dear PM Trudeau: You broke your word on electoral reform. There’s still time to make it right. #BringERBack”

Krista Kealey, vice president, communications and public affairs for the Ottawa International Airport Authority, told iPolitics their primary advertising outlets are managed by two third-party companies.

“Both contracts contain guidelines for advertising content, including political messaging, which the proposed ad contained,” she wrote.

Northam said they were disappointed to learn of the policy.

“But the good news is that people really want to see these ads go up and we’ve raised a lot of money over the past couple of days to put up ads elsewhere,” she added.

“We had about 680 people donate. We’re looking at placing the ads this week to be up next week … so that Liberal MPs walking around the city are reminded of the fact that electoral reform won’t be going away.”

Though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised during the 2015 federal election campaign that the 2015 election would be the last to use the first-past-the-post voting system, on February 1 he confirmed he was abandoning that commitment.

“It’s very clear, as people in this House know, I have long preferred a preferential ballot. The members opposite want proportional opposition. The official opposition wanted a referendum. There is no consensus. There is no clear path forward,” he said in the House of Commons.

Several Liberal MPs have apologized, but Leadnow is hoping the broken promise isn’t forgotten.

“They’re trying to sweep it under the rug by focusing on other issues, so media attention and public outrage slowly dissipates,” they say in their fundraising pitch.

“Putting this message up where we know they can’t ignore it sends a powerful message that voters haven’t forgotten — and we aren’t going away.”